We have had many conversations over our 6 years of podcasting around God and his eternal love. The reason we have had so many is because I seem either incapable or unwilling to accept that aspect of His character…at least not for me.
I have always struggled with the idea of God being both Just and Loving. I understand his justice and there are lots of examples of justice. I would characterize the Old Testament as a….testament to His justice. The New Testament seems to be where the story changes, there is an epic shift from justice to love. This shift has never sat well with me. God is supposed to be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. How can He be eternally consistent with such a huge dichotomy? He couldn’t (unless the dichotomy was false, but don’t get ahead of me, let me cook!). I rationalized this by separating these two characteristics and applying them to different persons within the Trinity. Christ was obviously God’s love. God the Father is the person of discipline and justice.
Theological issues with that statement aside, that is how I had to make sense of it. This is also why I tend to favor the OT. It is so much more straight forward. It is less about the mushy love stuff, which makes almost no sense to me. It is more about covenant relationship, which I translate to loyalty. Loyalty is a concept that rings true to my core. I get that. It makes sense to me. The OT is basically God making a deal with people and then blessing them or punishing them for their loyalty. That can seem transactional and not particularly warm and cozy. I would agree with that. I did struggle with transactional faith…and still do. But loyalty is a feeling that I feel. I feel loyalty like other people feel love, so it didn’t hinder my ability to worship.
Then, as He often does, God had to go and throw a monkey wrench into my proverbial spokes. He had me start reading Isiah. I love the old testament, but I don’t venture into the major prophets much. If I must confess, my favorite book is Judges, with a focus on Gideon. Isiah is very different than Gideon.
So, I’m reading Isiah little by little each night in my quite time. I’m finding some wonderful depictions of the Christ, some truth bombs on our tendency towards idolatry, and then big section where my notes were all the same…this kingdom messed up, so that kingdom will destroy it, woopty-doo. Then all of a sudden the tone changed. There was a dignified plea for the return to God. God, through Isaiah, tells us how He created the universe on purpose, with intent that should be inhabited. That those that should be inhabited should be in relationship God. That He was always near to them. He would never fully forsake them. He loved them and longed for their return. He was a father who wanted only to love his children, but also good and unwilling to allow them to go undisciplined.
I read those chapters and it turned my snow globe up and shook it. I could see how God had never changed. He was always loving. The dichotomy that I had created between the OT and NT was false because I had limited my reading to only the books that made sense to me. I focused on Judges, Kings, Proverbs, Psalms, even the minor prophets. All of these drive home the idea of loyalty to God. It is properly ordered loyalty, in that we should give it because He is worthy and deserving. It was not until I filled in some of my gaps by reading Isaiah that I could see through the transactions and see the relationship. When a child is being disciplined, it is hard to see past the pain. There is only the thoughts of how mean dad is being, or how this is being taken away from me. There is no concept in a child’s mind that says, “I do not enjoy this now, but I trust that my dad is doing this for my future good.” I’ve tried to reason with a child…it doesn’t work. It is the father’s responsibility to keep the long view in mind, to see that the small pains now save them from terrible hurts later. It is not until the child grows up, looks back, often after having a child of their own, that they reflect and see the good that was done for them and how dad loved them through all of it.
I hate that at 40 years old I have to admit I still act like a child in my faith. I hate that I am just now starting to “mature” into someone who can look back and see that God has disciplined me for my long term good. I have always seen God as hard and unyielding, which is common for the disciplinarian. I’m beginning to see him as a father who applied small controlled pains to save me from terrible everlasting wounds. I’m beginning to love God not because of what I can get out of it, but because of who He is in relation to me, a Father.
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